I have posted an interview with Fatal1ty over at www.thegamingcyclist.blogspot.com. We talk about whats going on in his life nowadays, quake, esports and esreality. Here is a snippet:

Thresh once said of you (in an ESR interview) ... "Fatal1ty plays a more methodical, running patterns type game, whereas I played a more thinking, strategic style game"... He also spoke about his slower, strategic style of play. Is it possible that such gameplay could withstand the ferociously fluid style most Pro-Gamers employ today? I'll cut to the chase ... do you think you would have beaten Thresh if you were both at the peak of your powers?

JW: I feel I played the game however it needed to be played to win the game. If a certain pattern was 100% effective, why not use it? As gamers got more complex to read and play against, I had to change my game to win the match. The game over the years has changed so much, so no one style is bullet-proof. Playing all the different games I've played, each game had a different way to play them, and if you tried to employ a q3 tactic in PainkilleR, it was impossible to win! I tried it, didn't work. I had to become more aggressive and more fierce with decisions and movement to bring the fight to me. I even had to change to no accel to play the game at optimal settings. As for the match between Thresh and me, we will never know. Thresh was a great player and I much enjoyed watching him when I was 15-16 years old.

Once he joined a server where I was speccing, just to test something ping-related out, and I asked him if he was planning on doing anything to help save QL, like LANS etc... and the best thing he could say was "YE MAN, U KNOW DAT VIDEO PUBMASTERS? WELL I DID THAT"

True, but don't forget that the game evolves, so it's normal for someone playing outdated to be raped(do you remember how everyone beated cooller at the beginning of his comeback? And how many games he needed to get back in shape(and his break was a lot shorter)). When he played, he was good. Noone can argue with that(same as the multigames success of him).

As far for the money part: noone can blame him either. Money are money after all, if someone else have the chance to earn them that way, he was going to. Obviously, even through we flame him here, the stupid american kids bite the dust and buy his brand products.

P.S. Funny enough I have fatal1ty headset(made from creative). Their sound is pretty good and are ok after 3 and a half years abusing.

No offense to you Mr Elliott, but if found this quite lacking content-wise, with definitely the wrong subject/target. Let me elaborate so that it is not just a rant.

Fatality moved on. He stopped being a pro gamer and became a businessman, who sells hardware to gamers, and plays video-games as a hobby.

Indeed this is covered by your interview, that can be summarized as:
1) past glories
2) he as gamer today
3) his business.

1) His past glories have been covered many times and to a greater extent. The story gets a bit old. I think everybody with a bit of salt on his brain knows Fatality has achieved good results, and proved multiple times to be a guy who can reach the top. Great.

Remembering everyone that those where the time with the big money as compared to now where it's a shadow of the past, is a correct observation, but implies the wrong message.

How money evolved has little to do with the players' ability. In fact, the major achievement of Fatality may be to be one of the first to be there. Of course big cash brings big pressure, but I hardly believe pro players today are less nervous/stressed because the prize purse is on 10th of what it was.

So, while I think fatality or voo can both be honored of having played a 150'000 final, they would be fool putting themselves 3 feet above today's pro. Fatality and voo were the best of a particular period. Similarly to a Cooller/CZM around 2004 and Rapha/Cypher today. This is how I see it as gamer. I understand this is not what the average MTV spectator may perceive, but I hope no interviewer ever mixes the audiences...

- if really 300US is the average salary in Belarus, then a quakecon win for Cypher should be as stressful as the big cash for Fatality was.

-if a crazy investor would put 1'000'000 US for a QL tournament this year, who do you think would win it? One of the current top players for sure. Sure, everyone would go full training for it, but it would still be a Cypher, a Rapha, or one of these to bring the big cash home. Would this really make them better champions? A bit yes, but not in the sense the outside world would think.

2) While I can relate with any video-game fan that says how BF3 is awesome, I would not really be interested in an interview of that. Casual gaming (because that's what BF3 is unless I missed something), is not really major news topic.

3) As for his role today, the story is that the hardware he makes is not necessarily helping us here. The hardware itself is fair, but not exceptional. Some pieces are good, kudos for those. Others are less good, and no one cares. But if we want to put it on hardware brands appreciation, I feel much more grateful to Microsoft for the IE3.0, to Razer for the Abyssus and to Samsung for the 2233rz.

In the past Fatality sponsored gamers. I think that would be something we would appreciate. Either sponsor some individuals or sponsor some tournaments. Thanks.

I have to ask, what's the origin of this phrase? I don't think I've ever seen it before, and it doesn't make any obvious sense :p

In the past Fatality sponsored gamers. I think that would be something we would appreciate. Either sponsor some individuals or sponsor some tournaments.

It'd be nice, but it seems like it would have to be truly altruistic/for the love of the game, because I can't imagine it being profitable for him. I would certainly appreciate it, but I would show this appreciation by writing F A T A L 1 T Y etc. on esr, and plussing the fuck out of him if he posted here. I think most people who care about Quake tournaments would be too cynical to start buying his products out of gratitude/brand power.

I know, there's a fine line between what I'm saying and the suggestion that advertising is useless in general, which is obviously naive.

But I do think that the hardcore-Quaker demographic is more likely to:

a) remain relatively unswayed by advertising

b) do a bit of active research before buying hardware

c) be pretty easy for Fatal1ty to communicate with, without spending money.

If he made an awesome product that would appeal to the types of people who watch Quake tournaments, he could get the word out to a significant chunk of this (tiny) demographic just by posting on esr. Maybe sending out a few free samples to influential people in the community. If the product was good, word of mouth would spread, and the hardcore would influence the slightly-less-hardcore by going on about how good it was.

I'm not saying Quake sponsorship is completely worthless from a business perspective. Obviously it is still worthwhile in some cases, according to a bunch of companies that still do it. I'm just sceptical as to how much Fatal1ty would have to gain from going down that route, given that he can already get our attention any time he likes, and we'll happily buy his shit if it's the best available, regardless of whether he is 'supporting the scene'.

if a crazy investor would put 1'000'000 US for a QL tournament this year, who do you think would win it? One of the current top players for sure. Sure, everyone would go full training for it, but it would still be a Cypher, a Rapha, or one of these to bring the big cash home. Would this really make them better champions? A bit yes, but not in the sense the outside world would think.

with that much money on the line, you can consider cooller a serious contender too

I would say that fatal1ty would beat thresh "at their peaks", which shouldn't really be that shocking, considering the state of the play styles when thresh was playing. What is a more interesting question is if both thresh and fatal1ty had a year to practice and get ready, who would win.

Thresh was head and shoulders above the competition, however I don't think his competition at the time was significant.

Fatal1ty on the other hand has beaten cooller, cypher (I think?), toxic, voo and zero4, in different game types and periods. It says a lot.

It would be great if he started playing again, but it would need to be a painkiller world tour style thing to bring him out of retirement, and I wonder at what age skill starts to decrease, or whether the game play style will merely change.

I completely understand why players like fatal1ty and zero4 are not too active anymore, life goes on.

as for toxic, nope. he barely won his map with 1 frag (placebo?) in the wsvg-finals and got pretty much raped on phrantic (30:5 sth like that) and monsoon (25:10 sth like that). it was like, hell fat powered his way all through that most important tournament of q4, just to get stomped down by the toxinator. :D

I found out what was the problem, i was expecting gaming related stuff like mice, keyboard, pads etc, but he sells motherboards, soundcards, rams... lol. No wonder i never heard about those, who the fuck would want a RAM modul with "progamer" recommendation...

Some of the hardware that he puts his name on happens to be decent regardless of his endorsement. IMO the majority of people buying Fatal1ty branded motherboards and sound cards don't even really know who he was or care, which makes me wonder why he still gets so many endorsements when he hasn't done a goddamn thing in years.

when will people get over fatality .. what a fucking mummy .. it's like posting an interview of cypher in 15 years .. so pointless and a waste of time.
None compares himself to fatality he was nº 1 in the game for like an amount of time in q3, like an year .. a hand of people have done the same in q3 and ql.

Please post something when fatality does something for the game instead of this bs propaganda.

he didn't dominate q3 nor pk, no one cares about AvP and doom3 was a joke.

I agree he is one of the all time greats out of 100 or more people with comparable gaming achievements, but he wasn't the very best in any period of time in any game nor genre, which is something that thresh, cooller, cypher and rapha achieved.

Also I've always been suspicious of some of his matches. Sincerely the first part of the grand final of the WSVG 2006 and the whole Championship Gaming Invitational seemed fixed, and some other tournaments were fishy too such as in doom3 (closed beta tester and probably mp designer winning a tournament of an unreleased game, then getting wrecked at every upcoming competition) and AvP2 (the whole thing). No idea about his ut2003 title though.

and about a comeback possibility, it won't happen. He already tried in quake4 and it's safe to say he wasn't top8 material.

at the grand finals he won the first set quite convincingly to get out of the loser bracket, which was very unexpected since he wasn't top8 material as I said. Then he got literally roflstomped and toxic won the tournament.

I just googled ut2003's release date and it seems fat won one of first tournaments or maybe the very first international one. Probably it's the same thing that happened in doom3: he got early access to the game so it was an easy win, and also playing against good players (daler, hs) but not the very best (gopher and rocketboy for example). That's why he only won those 2 very fishy tournaments but not getting even close in further competitions.

He beat many top quake 4 players. Look I'm not saying that he was the best, toxic was obviously the best in Quake 4, and voo was definitely the best in painkiller, but fat could go toe to toe with the best, in multiple, some times very different games.

yeah, but I put it that way so noobs can realize he didn't win "15 world championships in multiple games".

Considering all that it's safe to say he only won 7 tournaments cleanly (including q3 and pk), and that he wasn't the best in any era in any game. That puts him behind about 5 quake3 players, and a gazillion others from different genres.

He just sold himself better. The true "fatal1ty" of the fps genre is thresh, who didn't go that way but he stilll managed to earn at least 50 times more than him with competitive gaming (tournaments, firesquad, xfire and raptr).

Quick google search: Fat won 3 pk tournaments, including the last one and that we all know about, and also got 5 second places. Voo won 9 tournaments, and achieved 4 second places and 1 third. He literally got a podium finish in every single tournament he attended.

If fatality did anything it was making gaming more acceptable as he rather was mommas boy than the basement fiend or the "barbarian" russki guy... dominating means challenging and defeating everyone of the best players, he already came 2nd-3rd only in 2001, when he 24/7 praccing before he quit in q3, while others probably cried out their eyes to get their parents buy them the magical voodoo 2 card and finally have 100+ fps. Get real... Also i'd rather not mention avp2, as its equal to the paralympics analogy.

And just to make it clear for the case, domination is what toxjq did in q4, winning equal nr. of tournies just in that game, that fat win lifetime including avp, d3 etc...

The thing is this is quake not other games.. and the other thing is the players who didn't dominated other games is because they love quake .. any of them could have done the same (the best quakers) but they didn't like the others games or were commited to quake.

Fatal1ty actually made a living off games though he was the only legit professional gamer outside of the CS/SC scene Zero4 doesn't even compete in tournaments because he has a normal job. I am pretty sure even in Zero4's hay day when 30k prizes were common he was still gaming as a side thing not a profession. I consider a professional not some one who makes money doing something but makes enough money to live on, doing that something. Fatal1ty is obviously no longer a professional gamer because he makes his living off his company now.

Bit of a childish viewpoint. Fatal1ty has built up a brand name that will continue to make him money long after QL tournaments have dried up.
Where will they be in 10 years time? Who will have the bigger bank balance? If I were into betting and whatnot I know who I'd put my money on..

Well you dont need to know who he is, fatal1ty could also make you think of mortal kombat, of gaming in general. When you go on a website like overclockers his products are listed under the gaming category and kids are gonna love the name fatal1ty and want to own it.

Not a whole lot diff to the beats brand of headphones, my nephew loves them, his friends all have them, Doesnt matter to them that they are a bag of shite compared to hifi brands, they just want it for the name.

pretty funny how alot of posts seem to be angry with the fact that he used his name to make some money. Another thing: He'd be fucking dumb to return to DM now, he would just end up ruining the brand he's trying to build. He's older and there are way better players around.

That's ok ko0ma seriously.. i never criticized the way he is making money and i wish him the best as a business man.
I just don't like when people post interviews about him in quake forums and talking about how he was the biggest quake legend ever and what a king he was.

It's a joke and very out of date.. even cypher who is like 21? dominated for more time quake than fatality.

He might not not be the biggest quake legend, at least not to people still actively following the scene. But he is still the most famous deathmatch player ever. Kudos to fat for turning that into his livelihood today, I don't know that many gamers who after retirement can still make money on gaming. Except maybe Spawn and Heaton who i think does the same today.

However, I would still like to see Fatal1ty back in a deathmatch game, of course Quake Live would be the nicest game to see him compete in, both because it's the game most similar to the game he was most active in, but also because of the players still active in Quake Live. It wouldn't be fun if he returned for a Quake 5 beating no-names.

As much as it would be cool to see, there isn't really anything for him to gain by doing a comeback, at least not in Quake Live, he has much more to lose - If it was me tho, I would still do it, just to shut up people on ESR :D

I said there were nothing for him to gain by doing a comeback. aeoL said that he would compete if there was a big televised event with a good cash prize. Then I agreed that if such event existed then there would be something for him to gain by competing.

My point was just that right now is there nothing for Fat to gain by doing a comeback :)

Fat, why aren't you competing in quakelive? Why are you not calling zero4 out for challenging you and humiliating you back in december of 2007? How come your just going to go to shootouts anymore when you could be playing and competing in tournaments in quake live?

I respect Fat for what he achieved but he would be destroyed in QL today by Rapha/Cypher/Cooller/Strenx/Killsen/Avek etc etc. No wonder he doesn want to come back.

Anybody remember USA WCG Q3 qualifier in 2002? He couldnt even qualify for the WCG finals. He was a full time player back than with lots of training. He finsihed 4th behind Socrates/Daler/Chaoticz. He was never really THAT good in q3 ever as he thinks.

He would not be destroyed by anyone if he came back, from what I've seen of him he's far more dedicated to the game than any of the current, so I'd expect him to spend about 6 months training to be one of the best and keep playing everyday to keep his best shape

ofc if u compare his level of game right now (the one of a casual player) with the pros he would be destroyed, just keep in mind he wouldn't jump straight into the competition if he came back?

Fatality isn't good enough, that's why. He got to grips with Quake 3 really quickly and the game favoured his style and his ridiculous amount of practice time. No disrespect to him because he has been one of the most successful Quakers ever, if not 'THE' - but when it comes to all out ability and all round skill in Quake, there are lots and lots of much better players. No matter how much he practised, he would never beat Rapha, Av3k, Cooller, Strenx, Killsen, Noctis, Cypher and ZeRo4 as well as others.

Well said JDMYO :) For me the most impressive performance from Fat was his 2nd place in the WSVG 2006 Q4 finals. Respect for that but i dont think he would be able to do it in Q3/QL. And he knows this so he wont make a return to QL to ruin his reputation.

Good interview, kind of memory-lane-feel-good. But I wish it was longer, and had more questions about the current/future of esports or had follow-up questions, depending on how it was done. Maybe it's not too late and a second round is possible.

Is there money to be made with ESports right now? (for the aspiring gamer)

JW. ESports is just like real sports. Only the best will really thrive, and only the hardest working and dedicated ones will find their way.

what a ridiculous answer. you're going to make squat for your efforts in something that is just the flavor of the month dependent. Games will come and go. Wasted is the time invested in something considered a skill which in reality isn't. Noone's going to pay you to play quake 3 in the year 2025. Isn't the dead age for starcraft, '24', due to reaction times dwindling around that age? I hope you have a game plan for the future when noone really gives a shit at being the best at something so dumb. Seriously if you're a kid, you oughta look into things that can help you when you're in your 30's. Right now I have no life because I'm trying to catch up with professionals in the art world, because I wasted so much time taking chunks out of my universe from playing quake competitively, and it sucks. Professional gaming to me, now sounds like professional bong smoker. Do you seriously think anyone is going to give a FUCK down the road. It's embarrassing, bro. You need to see this shit with third person glasses, because it's nothing but an out of shape person beating someone at a game that will be forgotten.

"Wasted is the time invested in something considered a skill which in reality isn't."

A skill is a skill. Even in reality a skill is a skill. Presumably in dreams a skill is a skill. I would be surprised if successful gamers (e.g. good results vs top competition) were not also successful elsewhere. Hell, I would be surprised if people that had the mentality to improve were not also successful elsewhere.

time is the key to improve at anything. If you spend a lot of your time improving quake skills it's basically wasted time, since it's not a real skill. What career involves quake skills? You gotta know when to quit, since time is necessary to improve at real things society has deemed real i.e knowledge pertaining to specialized fields, honed, fundamental skills for performance related tasks. I'm not going to downplay the mental strengths you may gain from quake, but I'm going to downplay the time it consumes. Trust me, anyone at top level is constantly thinking of the game, and that takes a huge chunk of time. That's the whole point of my argument is the realization of the time being consumed at being good at something that won't really matter down the road. The world is a very strict place, you either strike gold with some weird idea, or become a master at something the majority can feed on.

talking about the very top here: you think a successful sc2 player who travels to a lot of places. has lived abroad, got experience with public speaking/appearance, learned a lot about himself and grew as a person by being in the spotlight/high pressure situations while making more money (sallery+prizes) following his dream than he could have with a regular job will look back at his pro years when he is 40 and has a "normal life" and think 'what a waste of time'?

I guess starcraft could be the exception since it's so ridiculous in korea, but my concern is mostly with the guys playing quake or other fps's that come and go. Starcraft is a real sport, in korea, but every other game is kind of just a fad

Yeah, he did have some sort of program that became very popular (I don't recall the name, which he sold for a buttload of cash)

I'm not too sure about him hiding from european duelers, I know dr| got raped when they played clan[9].

I remember a story, I don't know how much truth there is/was to it, but apparently he played immortal one map and used only gl and still won the game. That's an impressive feat no matter which way you slice it.